YES, OUR RULING CLASS IS CORRUPT, DISHONEST, OVERWEENING, AND INCOMPETENT: Pete Buttigieg is just a symptom of a vastly larger crisis. “Make a note of how they aren’t ‘advocating for a complete erasure of cars.’ Instead, they want the government to ‘re-direct the U.S. from relying on private motor vehicles.’ The word ‘private’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. In other words, they won’t be getting rid of all cars. Just your cars. Your private cars. Just like they won’t be getting rid of all planes. The military will still need jets (sold by the military-industrial complex and paid for by your taxpayer dollars). And important people like John Kerry will still need their private jets because they are very busy. But you don’t need to fly. . . . So Pete Buttigieg, who was given a position at the Department of Transportation based on nothing more than the claim that ‘he always liked cars,’ no longer wants you to have a car. But he’s going to have a car. And his preferred method of travel is via private jets now that he’s cashing in as a Washington insider with the Biden administration.”

They should be afraid of angry mobs. But they aren’t. Why not?

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Schumer pledges ‘supercharged’ path to AI regulation when Senate returns from recess.

Schumer is planning on kicking off a series of bipartisan “AI Insight Forums,” he told Senate Democrats in a letter on Friday morning, in a bid to get lawmakers caught up on the rapidly advancing tech. His first, on Sept. 13, is expected to feature tech leaders like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman, among others.

“These forums will build on the longstanding work of our Committees by supercharging the Senate’s typical process so we can stay ahead of AI’s rapid development,” Schumer said. “This is not going to be easy, it will be one of the most difficult things we undertake, but in the twenty-first century we cannot behave like ostriches in the sand when it comes to AI. We must treat AI with the same level of seriousness as national security, job creation, and our civil liberties.”

If there’s anything I trust less than large language models and their ability to screw things up, it’s Chuck Schumer’s.

READER FAVORITE: Carhartt Men’s Relaxed Fit Heavyweight Short-Sleeve Pocket T-Shirt. #CommissionEarned

EVERYTHING IS RACIST: ‘Racist’ Is the Mainstream Media’s Latest Sad Attempt to Smear Ron DeSantis.

FALLOUT: Russia’s massive brain drain is ravaging the economy – these stunning figures show why it will soon be smaller than Indonesia’s.

Since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion in February 2022, emigration out of Russia has exploded, with some estimates putting the exodus at 1 million people. A recent analysis from the policy platform Re: Russia narrowed the number to 817,000-922,000.

That’s contributed to a record labor shortage, with 42% of industrial firms unable to find enough workers in July, up from 35% in April.

The composition of Russia’s exodus also points to the best and brightest fleeing the country. While a barrage of Western sanctions incentivized many to leave for economic reasons, others fled to avoid military service, skewing the numbers toward younger Russians.

Workers under the age of 35 now account for less than 30% of the labor force, the lowest on record going back 20 years.

More: “In fact, the Atlantic Council estimated that Russia’s GDP, as measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), will fall behind Indonesia’s in 2026, nearly two years earlier than would’ve been the case had Putin not launched his war on Ukraine. By then, they will switch places as the world’s sixth and seventh largest economies by PPP.”

“Banana republic with nukes” has never been more appropriate than right now.

I REMEMBER WHEN HIGHER EDUCATION WAS DEFENDED AS PROVIDING A RESERVOIR OF INFORMED COMMENT: Professors: Jacksonville killings due to DeSantis, Trump, GOP, whiteness.

FUNNY, HE DOESN’T LOOK SUPREMACIST: Vivek Ramaswamy Now a White Supremacist™ According to Democrat Party.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: NC State halts welcome packet pushing group sex and one-night stands, following parental backlash.

GERMANY: Germany is the ‘sick man of Europe’ — and it’s causing a shift to the right, top economist says. “The ‘sick man of Europe’ moniker has resurfaced in recent weeks as manufacturing output continues to stutter in the region’s largest economy and the country grapples with high energy prices. The label was originally used to describe the German economy in 1998 as it navigated the costly challenges of a post-reunification economy.”

The difference then is Germany was going through the expensive process of lifting the formerly Communist east into affluence. Now Berlin is trying to smother the whole country with eco-communism.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Labor Day Jimmy Buffett Blues. “Yes, we will always have the music, but Buffett’s lighthearted spirit sure would come in handy for the next year or so.”

HE WAS VERY GOOD AT ECONOMIC WARFARE: Don Surber: Trump made Red China uninvestable.

HOW CAN TRUMP MAKE A CASE FOR REELECTION?

Under Trump we were energy independent, defeated ISIS, brokered peace between Israel and several historic enemies, confronted NATO members to pay their fare share, And stemmed the flood at the border. So, yes he was. https://t.co/ybKD3H1wi9

— Sen. Frank Niceley (@SenFrankNiceley) September 1, 2023

MAKING YOUR LIFE WORSE IS THE GOAL, EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST AN EXCUSE: Pete Buttigieg Wants You to Stop Driving Cars.

SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: Splashdown! NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 Returns Safely to Earth.

YOUR OVERCLASS AT WORK: Former acting Solicitor General describes ‘harrowing’ hike out of mud-bound Burning Man festival.

ANDY KESSLER: The Climate-Change ‘Emergency’ Is Coming for You: We’ve not fully arrived at crazytown. But the urge to curtail individual freedom is visible in countless blueprints for a controlled future.

Two years ago during Covid lockdowns, I wrote about climate control freaks, facetiously anticipating a future headline: “Bad CO2 Day, Lockdowns Enforced.” A joke that would never happen, right? Well . . .

Last month President Biden was asked on the Weather Channel if he was ready to declare a national climate emergency and responded, “We’ve already done that.” Asked again if he declared a climate emergency, he said, “Practically speaking, yes.” There is no official emergency, but the president certainly thinks we need one.

The fawning press gave him a break—he didn’t really mean that, did he? But the notion of a national emergency today isn’t farfetched. The United Nations website blares: “What you need to know about the Climate Emergency.” The European Parliament has declared one. So have hundreds of jurisdictions in at least 39 countries, including the U.K., Canada, Japan and Bangladesh. Climate-activist teenager Greta Thunberg gave away the game in 2019 when she said, “I want you to panic,” and, “I want you to act as if you would in a crisis.” Emergencies are an excuse to do whatever you want.

U.S. presidents can declare national emergencies, as spelled out in the 1976 National Emergencies Act, but they must be explicit: “When the President declares a national emergency, no powers or authorities made available by statute for use in the event of an emergency shall be exercised unless and until the President specifies the provisions of law under which he proposes that he, or other officers will act.” I’ve searched far and wide for such provisions and can’t find them.

No matter, we’re living as if we’re already under emergency conditions. As of Aug. 1, the Biden administration has halted the sale of lightbulbs with less than 45 lumens of brightness per watt. Incandescent bulbs don’t make the cut and are now banned. Thomas Alva Edison is rolling over in his grave. Will electricity be rationed next?

Oops, too late. In September 2022, the California Independent System Operator—which runs the state’s power grid, attached to sporadic renewables—declared an “energy emergency alert,” urging residents to ration power from 4 to 9 p.m. In March, the European Union mandated energy consumption be cut by 11.7% by 2030. Brits are urged to turn their heat off at night for “emissions savings.” The Swiss considered jail time if your thermostat is set above 66 degrees in the winter. Sit in the cold and dark and like it! And wait till you see the menu. The EU already allows crickets and mealworm larvae as food. Are high-protein maggots next?

This nonsense could never happen in the U.S., could it? Well, in 2016, New York University professor Matthew Liao suggested, “possibly we can use human engineering to make the case that we’re intolerant to certain kinds of meat.” He even suggested deploying a “Lone Star tick where, if it bites you, you will become allergic to meat.” . . . Climate lockdowns still sound like crazytown, but the urge to curtail individual freedom is visible in countless government, media and think-tank blueprints for a controlled future.

The failure to impose any consequences on the architects of the failed and overreaching Covid response will only encourage this sort of thing. Curtailing individual freedom is always the goal; the crisis of the moment is just an excuse.

LIGHTNING DEAL: BRISIRA Men’s Swim Trunks Quick Dry 5 inch Inseam Beach Shorts.. #CommissionEarned

EH, A LOT OF STORIES ARE UNRAVELING THESE DAYS: The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel.

According to the standard model, which is the basis for essentially all research in the field, there is a fixed and precise sequence of events that followed the Big Bang: First, the force of gravity pulled together denser regions in the cooling cosmic gas, which grew to become stars and black holes; then, the force of gravity pulled together the stars into galaxies.

The Webb data, though, revealed that some very large galaxies formed really fast, in too short a time, at least according to the standard model. This was no minor discrepancy. The finding is akin to parents and their children appearing in a story when the grandparents are still children themselves.

It was not, unfortunately, an isolated incident. There have been other recent occasions in which the evidence behind science’s basic understanding of the universe has been found to be alarmingly inconsistent.

Take the matter of how fast the universe is expanding. This is a foundational fact in cosmological science — the so-called Hubble constant — yet scientists have not been able to settle on a number. There are two main ways to calculate it: One involves measurements of the early universe (such as the sort that the Webb is providing); the other involves measurements of nearby stars in the modern universe. Despite decades of effort, these two methods continue to yield different answers.

At first, scientists expected this discrepancy to resolve as the data got better. But the problem has stubbornly persisted even as the data have gotten far more precise. And now new data from the Webb have exacerbated the problem. This trend suggests a flaw in the model, not in the data.

Two serious issues with the standard model of cosmology would be concerning enough. But the model has already been patched up numerous times over the past half century to better conform with the best available data — alterations that may well be necessary and correct, but which, in light of the problems we are now confronting, could strike a skeptic as a bit too convenient.

The science wasn’t settled, as it turned out. It never really is.

TO BE FAIR, HE LIES A LOT: Anthony Fauci continues to mislead about masking, as CNN confronts him (amazing video): It works for individuals but not populations, is his new line, but, this too, lacks data.

THE EXPERTS ARE SOUNDING MORE SENSIBLE THAN IN THE PAST: Who Should Get a COVID Booster This Fall? Experts aren’t convinced that younger, healthy people need boosters this season.

“Now for adults who are otherwise healthy and younger than 65, and young adults, adolescents, and children, that’s all going to be debated,” Schaffner noted, anticipating how discussions at CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will go when the group meets on September 12opens in a new tab or window. “Whether they receive a routine recommendation or one for shared clinical decision making … I think there will be some brisk discussion about that.”

Aaron Glatt, MD, of Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside, New York, who is also a spokesperson for IDSA, said that people “who have been vaccinated, who are healthy, who are younger, are probably not the first people who should be getting in line to get another COVID booster, especially if they’ve had one.”

In addition, someone who’s recently had COVID probably doesn’t need a booster, he added.

Glatt was a strong advocate for shared decision making when it comes to COVID boosters. He gave the example of a 62-year-old who was boosted 6 months ago and is in good health. “I think for that group, there’s more leeway to say, let’s individualize the decision.”

Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said unlike last year, when CDC recommended bivalent BA.4/5 boosters for all people ages 5 and upopens in a new tab or window (and later expanded the recommendation further), he expects CDC to take a risk-based approach to its recommendations.

They should have taken a “risk-based approach” all along. Plus: “If you’re a healthy 40-year-old, you’re not making a crazy choice not to get boosted.” You never were.

ON SUNDAYS I RUN A PROMO POST FOR (MOSTLY) INDIE WRITERS: Book Promo and Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

This week’s is exceptionally long, since I missed last Sunday, due to being away from home and the connection being super-slow.  Oh, there’s also a vignette competition that has (probably inadvertently) launched a hundred novels.

SOME PROBLEMS ARE TOO LUCRATIVE TO SOLVE: The Whole Idea Behind Homeless Advocacy Is To Not Solve The Problem.

IT’S TIME FOR MY SHOCKED FACE AGAIN:  New Study Suggests Global Warming Could be Mostly an Urban Problem.

DO YOU WANT LEFTISTS HANGING FROM OVERPASSES? BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU GET LEFTISTS HANGING FROM OVERPASSES*:  Fauci urges people to listen to health officials on masking as COVID-19 cases rise in US.

*A prediction, not a wish. Or if you prefer, another way of saying “FIFO you idiots. FIFO.”

NO! THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE!  Customs and Border Protection (CBP) flagged 74,904 illegal migrants nationwide for potentially posing risks to national security between October 2022 and August.

Why, it’s almost like countries have borders for a reason! Knock me down with a feather.